ISTD INTERNSHIP PROJECT – Mid-Term Progress Report

Name: Arindam Mitra

Registration No: 24581 (75th batch – Delhi Chapter)

A) Study Report bringing out training requirements of

anOrganisation/Department:

In this part I shall encompass the training requirements that I have tried to bring our in
various organization I have worked in, and how well (or not so well) the company is coping
to fill the gap.This section will detail how the organization works and how I have zeroed
down on the training requirements thereof. Also, how a specific training intervention can
help improve the productivity.

I) SHEELA FOAM LTD.

Company Profile

Sheela Foam Ltd. is a leader in Polyurethane (PU) Foam manufacturer in India. Sheela Group
is a multi-billion-rupee entity and has a nationwide presence in manufacturing PU Foam
with a global marketing perspective since 1971. The winning brands of Sheela Group include

 SLEEPWELL - The flagship brand for mattresses and comfort accessories

 FEATHER FOAM - A Pure PU Foam
 LAMIFLEX - A superior quality POLYETHER/POLYESTER foam for lamination

These are ranked as the largest selling PU Foam in the country.

My Role

I am a full-time employee of this organization since May 2019 and working as a Team
Manager, Channel Training. My profile includes Development and Delivery of Retail Training
Modules, and Product Training Modules to dealers’ employees, new & existing employees
of Sheela Foam; designing and developing training and evaluation content on the company’s
LMS portal for E-Learning.

Operation background and Training Need identified

Although Sheela Foam is one of the first companies to introduce PU foam mattresses in the
country; the organization is still in its infant stage when it comes to the field of training.
Having a training team set up consisting of mostly people from the company’s former sales
employees, a major focus is on product training with a little focus on behavioural training
thereof. The company is exploring new horizons of LMS systems through learning and
gamification apps like HandyTrain and is showing good progress with a requirement of
thorough follow up and follow through.
The aforesaid, however, is a huge leap and culture change for people who have grown with
the organization and are still more comfortable with conventional methods of training. The
issue is not the knowledge, but their acceptance towards the change.

The internal and external stakeholders are still uncomfortable with introduction of App
based training and gamification. The idea of introduction of training on Video Conference
platform too was met with some reservations and the project has still not moved out from
its “to be considered” stage.

Apart from training there are many other operational and HR related areas where there is a
lot of scope of improvement when it comes to cultural newness.

Thus, the training need I have observed in the organization is of a Training on Culture
Changeand willingness towards it. Although they had a countrywide sessionon culture
change and named it “Parivartan”; but in my opinion the mother session should be followed
by some sub-sessions on specific areas of change. Or, at least some follow up sessions
should be conducted.

Below is a brief outline of the topics, that these follow-up sessions would cover or can be
added to the existing workshop “Parivartan”:

 Organisational culture change management - learn how to change a culture in your

organisation.
 Culture Change
o Culture change is one of the biggest challenges any business will ever face!
o Importance of right culture, and how it can increase creativity and
profitability!
 Good Culture / Bad Culture
o But how do you create a good culture?
o How do you remedy a bad culture?
 How do you measure a culture?

Method of Training Need Assessment

Direct observations during my time in the organization.

 II) CEASEFIRE INDUSTRIES PVT. LTD.

Company Profile

Established in 2002, today Ceasefire is ranked amongst the top fire safety brands in the
Indian subcontinent. It is one of the biggest manufacturers and marketer of Fire Safety
Products in India and also expanding abroad. They cater to fire safety needs of Airports,
aircraft, the Indian Railways, ISRO, ships, factories, warehouses, malls, stadiums, offices,
cars, hospitals, schools, houses and Indian Army Ammunition Depots across the country.
They have their own manufacturing facility in Selakui, Dehradun; which manufactures 90%
of its product offering.

Ceasefire boasts of offering the topmost quality in the industry and having National and
International certifications of its products and processes.

Ceasefire Offers Product Ranges which are as follows:

 Portable Fire Extinguishers (Power, Water, Foam, Gas and Mist)

 Automatic Suppression Systems for small and large applications and premises
 Detection and Alarm Systems
 Fire Hydrant Systems
 Escape and Evacuation Systems

My Role

I have been a full-time employee of this organization fromApril 2017 to May 2019 and
worked as a Manager, Training. My profile includedDevelopment and Delivery of
Behavioural Training Modules, and Technical Product Training Modules to dealers’
employees, new & existing employees of Ceasefire in various verticals of the organization;
training Authorized Dealers and Company employees on organization’s ERP Software &
Mobile App by way of classroom as well as blended sessions for their employees.

Operation background and Training Need identified

Ceasefire is an organization known for offering the most technologically advanced solutions
when it comes to its product offerings. The automatic fire suppression systems that the
company offers use world class technologies to ensure that any size of fire is fought within
seconds.

Primarily the organization works on a direct selling model. They have a clientele including
households, small and medium businesses, big corporate houses, PSU’s and Govt. bodies,
Banks, Schools, Hospitals, etc. They have recently moved into selling through dealers whom
they call CBA’s (Ceasefire Business Associates), and they too need to work in a “push”
marketing stance. Needless to say, that the product knowledge that one needs to have is
very sound. The knowledge of how a particular system works and why is it better than
similar and cheaper options available in the market. Being an unorganized sector, the need
of having a thorough grasp on products is all the more necessary.

Sales teams has been seeing a continuous problem of attrition and the situation has not
changed much over the years. Whenever an employee is hired in Ceasefire, he or she goes
through at least a week of training under the L&D Team (I was a part of this team as one of
the senior trainers). Sales employees were hired almost every week and, in the company,
the designated day for all new joining’s was Monday. So, every Monday we would have a
new batch of Sales new joiners and their training began. We, as trainers, would first train
them on product basics, and then take them gradually towards more complex products and
their concepts, while regularly evaluating them on product knowledge on alternate days.

It was a norm that till the time the L&D Team did not pass an employee, he/she was not
allowed to start his duties of his job. We as a team would usually fail to clear off at least 1
new joiner of Sales Teams in every second batch. The new employee could not cope with
the vast product knowledge requirement and after some tries of retraining, the employee
was asked to leave after L&D marked him/her off as “unfit for the role”.

To make matters even more complicated for the employees, the sales employees had to use
the company’s ERP Software and App which was used to record visits, geo-tag them, punch
in orders and enquiries by clients, even fill in details about the client’s premise (for fire
safety measures) as a mandate. These were further linked to their direct KRA’s. Although we
trained the employees on the software on dummy data as a simulation, but the real
struggles came out when they used it practically on the field.

Moreover, the company did not provide IT hardware support, and thus the employees were
expected to carry their own laptops. Many employees simply left as they could not afford
one.

In each batch there were people who would leave without any notice, within the first month
of their joining; sometimes even before the training period was over.

In all such cases, the final call that the company took was, to call it a “wrong recruitment”.
The recruitment process is usually in 3 levels: an HR round where the HR recruiter gauges
the candidate of his or her knowledge and fitment to the position (things like salary
expectation, education background, field of experience, understanding of the job profile,
comfortability to the base location, willingness towards the job, etc.), followed by a round
with the Sales Head, following his approval the candidate moves into a salary negotiation
round with the HR Head, before he or she is finalized and offered the position.

Considering the aforesaid, the Training Need that I can identify is an “Interviewing Skills
Workshop” for the HR Team and Sales Heads. Which can help them in making better
decisions when hiring candidates for a position and optimising the money, time and
resource spent on hiring on training of a right candidate.
Here is a brief outline of the workshop that might be suitable for the recruiters in Ceasefire

 Importance of Effective Interviewing

 Introduction of the Interviewing Funnel
o Topic opener questions
o Accomplishment questions
o Self-Appraisal questions
o Competency probes
 Unmasking the Masked Candidates
 Questions that help you decide
 Setting organizational competency framework for different levels

Method of Training Need Assessment

The aforesaid assessment is based on study conducted on Exit Interview Calls conducted by
HR Team. These were calls made by HR Team to those employees who simply absconded
from their jobs without serving a notice.

Below is the questionnaire that the HR Team followed with them and a snapshot of the
answers given by the ex-employees.

We thereby got the top 3 chosen options; i.e. Job Profile & Responsibilities, Policies, and
Infrastructure/ Facilities. When we looked up those candidates records, we found that
people whose response was “due to job profile & responsibilities”, 80% of them were the
ones who either scored very less in the training evaluations on products or did not do well
with the ERP software and app (they found it overwhelming in the training itself). 90% of
those who mentioned the reason as “Policies” were not able to complete the reporting
requirements of the ERP software. Incidentally, these were the same people who scored
less in the simulation training during their induction. 90% of those who mentioned the
reason as “Infrastructure/ Facilities” had at some point complained about the laptop not
being provided by the company.

Inferring from the aforesaid, the hiring process has to be more refined.

III) HI-TECH INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, Ghaziabad

Company Profile

Established in 2011, Hi-tech Institute of Engineering and Technology (HIET) is a technical and
management institute located in the suburbs of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Established
in 2006 by Anand Educational Society, it is approved by All India Council of Technical
Education, New Delhi and affiliated to Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow.

HIET offers the following courses in the institute:

 B-Tech  MBA
 B-Ed  MCA
 B-Com  Polytechnic
 BBA  BJMC
My Role

I have been a part-time contractual Corporate Trainer in the institute July 2016 to April
2017. My profile included Developing & delivering of Soft skills Training Modules for
students and preparing them for Campus Placements. Delivering modules like
communication, resume writing, mock interviews, GD's, presentation skills, grooming, email
etiquette, platform skills. I was heading the Training Department there.

Operation background and Training Need identified

HIET is an institute which harbours various students in different fields of education but
primarily students of B.Tech. Being a fairly new institution in Delhi NCR, HIET had started an
initiative to hire Corporate Trainers with sound industry background so they can prepare
students for the campus placements. The project was named as CCP – Corporate Connect
Program. As I was the first trainer to be hired – I was given the charge of the program to
drive it forward.

We were initially given 2nd and 3rd year students (in a 4-year course) to train in a full-fledged
course format with regular classes and syllabus. The idea was to facilitate us in getting
comfortable in interacting with college students as trainees and familiarizing them with the
new format of learning which would not only consist of classroom training session but also
out-of-the-class activities.
For the final year students, it was more of a crash course as they had very little time left for
hiring companies to come for campus placements.So,the entire course had to be shortened
and tailor made according to their timings, stream of specialization and classes.What we
had planned for them, as a training course in CCP, was a battery of training topics and
associated activities. Some of them were as follows:

 Presentation Skills
 Dressing
 ResumeWriting
 Group Discussion
 Mock Interviews

These were bit different from the course structure we had laid out for the 2 nd and 3rd year
students. These students had more time to spare, so the sessions were more elaborate and
they underwent a thorough evaluation and practice. The 2 nd and 3rd year students went
through all of the aforesaid programs AFTER they underwent the following training
programs:

 Basic Communication Skills

 Time Management
 Stress management
 Email Etiquette and corporate communications

These programs were all oriented towards one sole objective: Clearing campus placement
interviews. The students were evaluated on different topics and evaluation too, was
different. For instance, communication skills were evaluated by a 2-min introduction the
students had to give and they were free to use their creativity. Some students even made
PowerPoint presentations and chart papers and even posters in their introduction. The idea
was to encourage the students to speak and express – we took it as one big ice breaker for
the entire program. It was a way to let the students know what they can do and what they
can expect in the program they were getting into for a whole year.

The Time Management session had its games and activities but the evaluation was done by
checking how many students who attended the Time Management session could submit
their weekly assignments on time.

For stress management, the students were paired up in groups of 3 and the evaluation was
on how well one of the group members can teach the other two members of the group
about a hobby or skill he/she pursues or possesses. It could be playing, an instrument,
singing, balancing a spinning basketball over his finger, roller skating, etc. Hobbies can be
great stress busters.

For corporate communications, the students had been given an assignment by us which was
close to impossible to complete (e.g.: in some classes we gave them 3 days to submit a
minimum 100-page project on Aldolf Hitler’s life). Needless to say, it was too less a time. We
gave the assignment on a weekend, so that their class timings would not get wasted and the
3rd day is Monday. So, on the Monday, we would ask about the status – and mostly all of
them would say it’s in process. So we would ask them to write us a formal work plan that
they had in mind followed by an explanation for their delay and how do they plan to cope.
The email’s clarity and formatting were what they were evaluated on.

In case of the Final year students, the evaluations were more in real time and role-play
based. The feedback was given on the spot and follow up sessions were done by trainers in
closed focus groups.

However, one thing that we, as trainers, constantly struggled with was the students’
apprehension with spoken and at times written English too. A student who may be very
expressive and confident while speaking in Hindi, was completely opposite while trying the
same in English.

This also turned out to be a major setback during Campus Placements. Some very good
students of Final Year could not get placement in the initial waves of companies just
because they were not very articulate in English.

Considering the aforesaid, the Training Need that I we could identify is an “Written and
Spoken English Course curriculum” for the students. Which can rid them off the fear for the
language and the anxiety caused due to it.

Below is an outline of the workshop that might be suitable for the students in HIET. There
are two parts of the curriculum: English as a Language (Grammar) and Spoken English
 English Grammar

30 Hours - Written English (Grammar & Sentence formation)

S. No. Topic Covering No. of Sessions Duration (Hours)
1 The Capital Letter 1 1
Common Nouns
Proper Nouns
Singlar Nouns
2 Noun 1 2
Plural Nouns
Collective Nouns
Masculine and Feminine Nouns
Personal Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
3 Pronoun 1 2
Interrogative Pronouns
Demonstrative Pronouns
Adjective Endings
4 Adjectives Kinds of Adjectives 1 2
Comparison of Adjectives
Articles
Demonstrative Determiners
5 Determiners 1 2
Interrogative Determiners
Possessive Determiners
Simple Present Tense
Am, Is and Are
Present Progressive Tense
Have and Has
Present Perfect Tense
Simple Past Tense
Regular and Irregular Verbs
6 Verbs & Tenses 2 5
Was and Were
Past Progressive Tense
Future Tense
Can and Could
May and Might
Do, Does and Did
Would and Should
7 Subject-Verb Agreement 1 2
8 Adverb 1 2
9 Prepositions 1 2
10 Conjunctions 1 2
11 Interjections 1 2
What is a Sentence?
Kinds of Sentences
The Imperative
12 Sentence formation The Subject and the Object 2 4
Direct and Indirect Objects
Positive & Negative Sentences
Questions
Period
Comma
13 Punctuation Exclamation mark 1 2
Question mark
Apostrophe
15 30
Spoken English
4 Hours (per day) - Spoken English
No. of Sessions
S. No. Topic Covering Duration (Hours)
in a day
One - to - One speaking session
where students sit in pairs and
coverse with each other in turns
1 Two-for-a-Tango! on a given topic. Aim is to 4 1.5
eliminate fear of English
Conversation. Pairs are
interchanged after each session.
Speak to the class on a topic -
topic choice is given in
categories. The same is vedio
2 Speak out Loud! 8 2
recorded and shown to them
and given feedback then and
there. 1 student per session.
Group discussions on a given
3 Lets Discuss! topic - 10 students per session. 2 0.5
Feedback post discussion
14 4

Method of Training Need Assessment

The aforesaid training needs were assessed partly by observation and partly by interviewing.
We conducted interviews of 200 random students asking them to rate certain Topics /
Skillson their relevancy (according to the students themselves), pertaining to their Campus
Placement Interviews. The answers that they give are tabulated as under:

Moderate Relevant:
Not relevant: Extremely
relevance: Would be an
already offered Relevant:
Topics Focus needs to added
by HIET Necessity
be improved advantage
1 2 3 4
Aptitude training sessions (maths/ reasoning/ gk) 1 15 110 90
English Language + Spoken English Training 0 0 20 180
Trainig sessions on Newly Introduced Technologies 24 121 35 20
Industry Visits 51 109 22 18
Short term Internships 0 172 20 8
Live Projects 163 22 15 0
As one can clearly see – the Top-Rated topics were English Language Training and Aptitude
Sessions. Shortly after this interview results were discussed with the institutemanagement,
they hired an external visiting faculty for aptitude sessions.

We, the CCP trainers, were then required to formulate a curriculum for English which is
discussed earlier.

IV) EUREKA FORBES LIMITED

Company Profile

Eureka Forbes Ltd is a consumer goods company based in India. It was founded in 1982 and
is a part of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. Its product portfolio consists of water purification,
vacuum cleaning, air purification and home security solutions. The company has a current
base of 15 million consumers with more than 450 locations and 18,000 dealers in India. It
also has a global footprint across 35 countries.
The company has 3 major verticals:

 EFL Direct: consists of domestic customers and products and solutions are primarily
marketed keeping in mind household setups. The model is primarily run in a Direct-
Selling Model and they have recently also ventured into channel sales.
 Forbes Pro: consists of industrial customers and solutions are majorly focused on
industrial application and B-to-B sales. The model is primarily run in a Direct-Selling
Model.
 Euro Smile: consists of the after-sales-service division and is an umbrella division
serving all other verticals in after-sales-service needs. The model is primarily run
through Franchise Business Partners or Service Business Partners.
The winning brands of EFL Direct include:

 Aquaguard– Theflagship brand for household water purification systems

 Euroclean– Householdhome cleaning and vacuuming systems
 Eurovigil – Home security and surveillance systems
 Fire Guard – Portable Fire Extinguishers
 Euro Diya – Solar Powered Lamps

The winning brands of Forbes Pro include:

 Water Solutions – industrial water purification systems

 Clean Technology Solutions – industrial cleaning and vacuuming systems

My Role

I have been a full-time employee of this organization from February 2012 to July 2016 and
worked as an Officer, Learning, Training & OD. My profile included Developing & delivering
Behavioural Training Modules – (including slide presentation,training activities, exercises
and games, handouts and trainer’s notes). I was extensively involved in mapping Training
needs of employees by analysing LDC reports which are carried out bythe National HR Team.
I also compiled and reported Monthly Reports of training programs conducted by 35 SBU
trainers allover India.

Operation background and Training Need identified

Eureka Forbes Ltd. is primarily a consumer durables company with a great presence in the
household products sector. The company mainly operates on a direct sales model and has
an in-house Learning, Training & OD department, which I was part of. Since the company
comprises of a big chunk of sales employees, major focus of T&D is the sales team. Since in
the period of 2012- number of employees in sales were close to 5000+; the population of
trainees were quite a lot.
Needless to say, that the sheer number of employees also called for extensively elaborated
departments in the organizations. The major departments were Sales, Marketing,
Commercial, Finance, Accounts, Audit, HR, Learning-Training& OD, IT, Logistics, Service &
Spares, and Customer Support. There were 4 regions: North, South, East, West; and 9 SBU’s.
The sheer number and spread of employees all across the country calls for a dedicated team
of each of the aforesaid departments to be based at all branches or locations throughout.
However, the case was just the opposite.

All departments had lot less people than required, and also one person handling a very large
segment of the employee population. For example: each SBU had an Area HR Head, with 1
or at a maximum, 2 people reporting in to them from different locations. Now, for setting a
perspective, two of the SBU’s were Eastern and Western UP.

The entire UP HR team consisted of only 6 people (2 SBU HR Heads for each SBU, 2 Area HR
Heads and 2 executives). The entire UP with its 42 branches were looked after by only by 6
HR people. One can only imagine the amount of workload on each individual.

The same situation was in case of other departments as well. All the support staff were
required to maintain MIS of their work and other reporting jobs, but no or very few
departments had a dedicated MIS person. My own department lacked one, and apart from
all the coordination, development and delivery of training content; I was supposed to
prepare MIS reports of various training and OD initiatives taken up across different verticals.
This directly and adversely affected peoples’ work-life balance. The office timings
throughout the organization was 9:30 am to 5:30 pm on weekdays and Saturdays it was a
half day 9:30 am to 1:30 pm. But this was, as mentioned earlier, official timings. The entire
organization, irrespective of any branch or region, has a culture of staying back late after
office hours. If anyone tries to break the pattern and leave on time, he or she is treated as
an amateur or a rule-breaker. Half days were usually those days when people did leave on
weekday timings. Needless to say, young talent who joined the company felt trapped and
frustrated. I have had my own badexperience in these lines.

To add to this, reporting managers had a regular practice of giving work for home to their
subordinates which they were also expected to finish on weekends. I have personally
received calls from my boss in the middle of the night asking for update on a report that I
was supposed to finish during the weekend and produce on the following Monday. This was
one of my top 3 reasons for leaving that organization.

Last but not the least, being a direct selling organization, with managers and sales heads
who have grown within the organization (as the company rarely hired senior level people
from outside – even if they did, they were ex-employees), it was a common sight to find
managers shouting and verbally abusing their team members on non-achievement of sales
targets. What’s more shocking is that most of them accepted it as a norm and didn’t
complain. This became a problem, though for female employees who had to act normal
while profanities were thrown across the office and they had to put up with it. Its hard for
them, even if such behaviour is not directed at them.

Thus, the training need that I have identified for the organization is a country-wide session
on Sensitization on Work-Life Balance and Handling Corporate Abuse. This program should
be done in three phases – once for upper management, then for middle management, and
finally for lower management.

Here is a brief outline of the workshop that might be suitable for the organization

Part One

 What is meant by Work-life balance?

 The four major skills needed to achieve work life balance
o Part one: Prioritisation, time management
o Part two: Balance and harmony between the competing demands of family
and work
 Prioritisation, time management and delegation
o Three-time wasters SOS: Self – Others - Systems
 Discover your “hierarchy of values”
 Your life is composed of Major Elements.
 What is the relative importance of the Elements?
 Never neglect any element for too long
Part Two

 What do we all need at work? - Basic needs at work

 What is respect? - Group discussion
 What is a respectful workplace? Why is it important?
 Is your workplace respectful? A survey
 Understand disrespect - Freeze Frame Analysis
 Who is responsible to prevent disrespect?
 Scenarios and processing - a few Stories to Consider
 What can you do?
 One practical suggestion: use “I” statements

Method of Training Need Assessment

Direct observations during my time in the organization.

B) Report of Five Training Sessions:

In this part I shall cover five training programs, that I have conducted in the past,one for
each organizationmentioned earlier in my preparatory note. I shall showcase each program
in the light of the ADDIE Model and in certain cases, shall share the sample data of
evaluations done as well.

I am still working on this part and will include the entire work with my final report
submission

C) One Evaluation Study of a Specific Training Programme:

In this part I shall cover one Evaluations Study of a Training on ERP Software and App for
Sales Team of Ceasefire Industries, conducted by self, using a simulation technique where
each participant (trainee) was given a sample case to work on and a dummy login was
created for each trainee in the ERP software.

I shall be sharing the actual dummy case and explain how each trainee went through with
the exercise in the ERP. Also covering the working and thus, the navigation of the ERP
software itself.

I plan to prepare the complete study on the evaluation by the end of the fourth month of
the internship tenure.

Ceasefire is an organization known for offering the most technologically advanced solutions
when it comes to its product offerings. The automatic fire suppression systems that the
company offers use world class technologies to ensure that any size of fire is fought within
seconds.
Primarily the organization works on a direct selling model. They have a clientele including
households, small and medium businesses, big corporate houses, PSU’s and Govt. bodies,
Banks, Schools, Hospitals, etc. They have recently moved into selling through dealers whom
they call CBA’s (Ceasefire Business Associates), and they too need to work in a “push”
marketing stance. Needless to say, that the product knowledge that one needs to have is
very sound.

Being an unorganized sector and fire safety requirements being different in different
premises, there is a tremendous requirement of an ERP software that tracks, reports,
analyses, integrates and streamlines the entire sales process with other departments of the
organization; especially for sales team. Therefore, as a part of their induction, when sales
people join, an ERP Simulation Training is scheduled for each one of them. The software is
developed in-house and the same is called the CCRM (Ceasefire Customer Resource
Management) Software. Parts of the training is carried out on a Laptop based software
application and parts of it can be accessed on a mobile App. The organization is aspiring to
bring the entire ERP system on the mobile App itself.

Details of the training are as under:

The training session is a simulation of the ERP system for the Sales Team member of the CBA
(Ceasefire business Associate) or the Dealer Division. The CCRM follows a SPANCO Process
(Suspecting > Prospecting > Approaching > Negotiating > Closing > Ordering) as a standard
process of any direct sale. The training refers to different steps at different points of the
program. The training is from a CBA’s point of view.

Objectives of the session are:

 Understanding how to add and lock clients (accounts)

 Know how to add clients as Suspect and then promote it to a Prospect
 Understanding Accompanied Calls
 Knowing how to make a proposal and placing an order

The biggest challenge in any process training is evaluating the actual grasp of the subject
and how well the participants would be able to apply all the aspects once actually using that
process in their day-to-day job. The advantage with Simulation Technique is that once after
explaining the process flow, the evaluation is simply observing, how the participants
navigate through the given task course. That’s exactly what we did in this case.

The training program first takes the participant through a series of tasks simulating an actual
SPANCO process; right from locking a client up to the proposal presentation. The
participants were, however, stopped from proceeding to the order stage as it was in the live
server and an actual order gets placed – which confuses the accounts and logistics teams.
The participants used tutorial videos as guides to understand or recall the process wherever
they get stuck. The trainer in the meanwhile observed how each of them were performing –
as the screens were shared with that of the trainer.

The entire program was commonly done on a common LMS platform, known as CAFÉ
(Ceasefire Academy of Forging Excellence)

The entire task course is as follows:

------------------------------------------

 CBA (HOL/ Owner) ID: CBA63837 Password (for both): 123456

 CBA FL/Manager ID: CBA638370
 CBA FL/Manager ID: CBA638371
 CBA FL/Manager ID: CBA638372

Note: Take help from the CAFÉ Videos of CCRM, wherever you get stuck. If you still face an
issue, ask your RM or Trainer for help.

Login with CBA FL Account

Q1. Listed Account

Checking and requesting for approval on a listed account:

Search for a listed account in the name TEST A. Send a Request Form for any one TEST
Account

Q2. New Account

Add a new TEST Suspect and get it approved from Sales Admin Team. Take help of your RM
or the Trainer, in this– (read Q 2a. below for instructions)

2a. Add account “Test <mothers name> Long” search and ask for Long term request

For example: If my mother’s name is Uma my Account’s name becomes Test Uma long

After you have sent the request(s) to Sales Admin – call your RM or the Trainer and ask
him/her to get it approved from Sales Admin department.

(in actual cases on the field, you will not need to call anyone, the approval process will be
followed by Sales Admin team automatically)

Q3. Post approval, make a suspecting visit entry from Protected Long term account on “Test
<mothers name> Long” enter the outcome of the call as “Continue” and show this call as
“Tele Visit” along with the imaginary details of the client.
How to check to see if the permission is granted Go through to Report->Assigned Account
Status-> Request Status –> All –> get detail

Q4. Create CPS (Customer Profile Sheet)

4a. Create CPS of Test <mothers name> long. This is an office. It also has a Kitchen

4b. Approve CPS from owner’s account (Inbox -> pending CPS request)

Q5.Create Prospect

5a. Create Prospects for Test <mothers name> long (with CHPS as a part of products being
offered)

Get the prospect approved from owner account. This is called Prospect Qualification

Q6. Add visit to Prospect and Accompanied Call

6a. Add visit on the prospect Test <mothers name>long and enter SPANCO stage as
“Approach”. Make this call an “Accompanied Call” (Select YES when asked “Is this an
accompanied call?”)

Select Unplanned Accompanied Call

Select self role as Trainee Observer, accompanied by CBA Owner (Test Lenford Traders)
who’s role is Trainer Demonstrator. Objective of the call will be “To learn FAB Technique”.

Select the Accompanied call assigned and give your feedback of that accompanied call.
Complete the details and save the visit.

6b. Open another instance of the CCRM and login with HOL (owner’s account). Go to INBOX
and select “Add Visit to Accompanied Calls”. Give feedback on the call from the Owner’s
point of view.

6c. Add visit on the prospect Test <mothers name>long and enter SPANCO stage as
“Presentation”. Select Product as “Launcher”

Q7. Create Proposal

Data ->Proposal ->CBA Eproposal

Login with the FL account (same ID and password)

7a. Create a proposal for Test <mothers name>long for 3 units of “Launcher”. Customer
Email Id which you have to enter is arindam@ceasefire.in or deepika@ceasefire.in

Complete input sheet.

Create a proposal for Test <mothers name>long for 2 CAFS (9 ltrs). Customer Email Id which
you have to enter is arindam@ceasefire.in or deepika@ceasefire.in

Complete input sheet.

7b. Create 2 options in B.A.T.N.A using the different negotiation tool (Product Discount,
Discount on Delivery Charge and Discount on Installation charge) available for Test
<mothersname>long and SUBMIT

7c. Get approvals from right person (HOL). Download PDF by clicking View PDF button. Send
All proposals to client

DO NOT MOVE AHEAD as we don’t want to confuse the Accounts team – as you are working
on the live server. Watch the videos in CAFÉ for the further steps.

------------------------------------------

The above task was carried out by each participant. The evaluation was done as to how well
each participant moved from one stage to the other thereby navigating through the ERP
software correctly and adequately filling information as and when required.

The participant had to add an account and get an approval from the sales admin.
Thereafter, he had to punch in a suspect visit and get a Customer Profile Sheet filled up. The
participant then had to make the suspect qualify t a prospect by offering a certain range of
products to him.

The prospect then had to be visited (virtually) to graduate to a presentation stage and then
making an offer. At this point, an E-proposal is sent to the customer and virtual negotiation
has to be registered in the ERP software. When the deal is finalized, the order has to be
placed.

When a participant had to attempt the above task sheet, more correctly he/she followed
the steps, higher was his/her scores in the evaluation.

D) Two Cases-prepared by the self, which may be used in a Training Session:

In this part I shall be covering two cases which were used as training or evaluation tools in
two of my training sessions. The cases are as follows:

Case 1: Making a sales pitch for Fire Extinguishing equipment in a well-known Auditorium.
The participants were given the scenario and details about the premise; based on which
they had to come up with possible risk areas and thus, suitable fire safety products for
different areas of the premise.

Case-let: Fire Safety Audit – Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi

Siri Fort Auditorium is premier multi-auditorium complex of Government of India. Situated
in the Siri Fort in New Delhi, it is also the headquarters of the Directorate of Film Festivals
(DFF), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which also run the complex. Also close by is
the Siri Fort Sports Complex. It was a combined seating capacity of 2500, spread over its
four auditoriums, making it the largest such complex in Delhi. Besides the National Film
Festival organized by DFF wherein public screening of National Film Award winning films is
held, it also hosts musical concerts, cultural performances, and plays.

Built in the historic Siri Fort area, the 14th-century settlement of Delhi built by
AlauddinKhalji. The main auditorium no. I, was built by the Delhi Development Authority
(DDA) during 1982 Asian Games held in Delhi. In 1986, the auditorium was taken over by the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at a cost ₹98,147,000. Subsequently, the Ministry
added three smaller auditoriums, Auditorium-II in 1992, Auditorium-III in 1996 and
Auditorium-IV in 2003. The complex underwent a renovation in 2009-2010.

Today the auditorium is one of the topmost auditoriums in Delhi and has hosted many
shows, speeches, concerts, plays, award functions, debates, etc. from around the world. To
give one perspective, Former US President, Mr. Barack Obama addressed the Indian citizens
from and at the Siri Fort Auditorium after his 3-day Indian tour in January 2015.

Mr. Vinayak Verma, the head of security inDirectorate of Film Festivals, has been worried
since the event of fire that broke out on the ground and first floors of the Siri Fort
Auditorium, on 1st July 2018. The call was received by the Fire Department at 11:38 am and
15 fire engines were rushed to the spot; where it was put out at 12:35 pm. However, the
loss had been tremendous and almost Rs. 12,00,000 were spent on repairs and renovation
of the premise. Post the mishap, even insurance companies had raised their premium. The
management was asking questions that Mr. Verma had no answers to. Why and how did the
fire start? Why was it not detected by the fire alarms? Why was the fire not detected by the
security personnel present at the time? All questions had been hitting him like bombs –
ready to diminish his career into ruins. However, he was determined to answer one
question though, “How do you plan to prevent such mishap in the future?” This was high on
his mind.

He has laid out the premise’s plan and considered all possibilities. The data pertaining to the
premise he had were:

 The auditorium is spread over the area of 6000 sq. feet. It has 4 auditoriums with a
the biggest one having a seating capacity of 2000 and a combined capacity of 2500
 The Auditorium has 2 entry gates and 2 exit gates, and one gate that can be used by
staff only and opened for everyone in an emergency situation
 It hosts a variety of events everyday ranging from 10-12 events in its different
auditoriums.
 It is carpeted and has costly seats upholstery and artefacts such as vases, statues,
artificial fountain
 The true walls, floor and ceilings are concealed behind wooden linings all across the
walls and ceilings, and floors
 The technical nest (high up close to the ceiling of the auditorium) is equipped with all
hi-tech equipment required for high quality audio-visual experience to the audience.
 In total 50 employees work in the auditorium. The office has 20 computers, two
photocopiers and two printers.
 The auditorium has a huge parking lot in the basement which has a capacity to park
500 cars at one time with full capacity utilization.
 It has a huge cafeteria with kitchen where meals are served for employees and the
participants of the events. An extension of the same is an adjacent Village Restaurant
for commercial offerings.
 It has a generator room with 150 litres of oil storage for power back up.
You, a sales representative from Ceasefire Industries, have fixed up an appointment with
Mr. Verma regarding new and improved Fire Safety. You and Mr. Verma, had a long chat
and he has agreed to show you around the premise for better understanding and facilitating
the fire-audit-survey.
You have been through the entire premise and have made your notes. You have primarily
zeroed down to 5 major risk areas: The auditorium, the office, the cafeteria and restaurant,
generator room and the parking.Some points, you have made are as follows:

 The auditorium has concealed wiring under wooden boards as false walls and
ceilings
 Carpets, curtains and cushioning are nylon and polyester (highly flammable)
 The curtains are drawn high due to high ceilings and the same is operated
automatically by electric machines on remote control
 The auditoriums have a theatre like seating with 4 sloped steps towards the stage
 The office space is well maintained and electrical fixtures are having either concealed
wirings or wires racks having several wirings clipped together
 The cafeteria and the restaurant have a common kitchen with 15 electrical and 15
PNG fat fryers and 20 independent cooktops. The cafeteria and restaurant
combinedly served an average of 1000 people in a regular event day
 The cafeteria has seating capacity of more than 500 people and the furniture is
wooden with foam upholstery
 The parking lot is located close to the Fuel Storage for the generator room which is
located nearby
Mr. Verma has mentioned that the building currently has a Fire Hydrant System which is
maintained by the auditoriumstaff itself. They also have 5 hand held Powder Type Fire
extinguishers and Carbon Dioxide type Fire Extinguishers

You have to come up with a Proposal for the premises suggesting appropriate quantities of
Fire Safety Equipment from Ceasefire Industries. Mention the prices as per quantities
suggested.

Do keep in mind that Mr. Verma is trying to close this as soon as he can and he has other
options to consider and there is higher probability for the proposals from competitor brands
to be lower in price. Having said that, he will not be compromising on quality this time and
therefore might be willing to extend his budget if one can convince him for the Value for
Money.
Note: Suggest one or more products for each Risk-Area Identified. Giving reasons for your
suggestions will be beneficial. Talking about the advantage of quality and reliability of

Note for the Evaluator/ Trainer ONLY (to be removed from the participant’s copy):

 The focus is not on how big the proposal is, but on which products do the participants
suggest in each risk area.
 Some points to consider will be as follows:
 The high curtains have to be kept in mind as the fire can catch at a height – so portable
extinguishers will be rendered useless as they are not capable of reaching fires at a
height
 Any place that has electrical equipment or wiring thereof cannot be backed up with a
water extinguisher (unless it is mist-type)
 Any place that has flammable fuel or cooking oil cannot be backed up with a water
extinguisher (unless it is mist-type)
 If powder extinguishers are suggested, one has to keep in mind the post-fire damage and
clean-up cost which is usually very high – especially for high value equipment and
antiques
 Extinguishers have to be suggested keeping in mind the existing fire-safety equipment at
the premise and the suggestion should be better than that.
 The suggestion has to be made keeping in mind the kind of flammable materials the
place has (for example: concealed wiring under wooden boards is a great fire risk as one
short circuit spark can give rise to a huge fire that will go undetected at the very
beginning) – so suggesting a automatic micro-environment fire suppression system can
be the key
 While suggesting trolley mounted extinguishers one has to keep in mind, if the premise
has steps to climb up or down. A very heavy extinguisher on wheels can be practically
impossible for a single person to manoeuvre around safely

Ceasefire Products over other brands will be a plus.

Case 2: An ethical dilemma, based case study of an organization where the HR Team had to
decide between replacement or training of the organization’s staff. This case was given to
the participants who were college students pursuing MBA in HR domain.

Case-let on Ethical dilemma: Give in or Give up?

Deepak became chief human resources officer and a member of the Executive Committee of
a medium-sized and moderately successful Home Appliances manufacturing & marketing
business six months ago. The company was owned by two brothers and a few family
members & friends. Deepak was the first “nonfamily” member to hold such a position and
to be included in the Executive Committee, he took the job despite a few reservations of the
top management and also a remark, he overheard, by the company's CFO that some board
members were concerned about Deepak's "fit with the company culture." But the CEO (who
is married to the sister of the founder of the company) said he was willing to be Deepak’s
“mentor and guide”.

Soon after Deepak started, the company decided for the first time to "right-size"
(aunderstatement for downsize) to respond to rapid changes in its business. Deepak, who
had been through this before when he was a senior manager in his previous company,
agreed this was good for the long-term health of the 20-year-old company. He decided not
to worry that thetop management seemed more concerned about their own short-term
financial interests.

Besides, the CEO was relying on Deepak to help him determine how to downsize in an
ethical manner; the CEO said he trusted Deepak more on this than he did the head of his
welfare and admin, who had "been around a little too long."

On Deepak's recommendation, the company decided to make its lay-off decisions based on
the annual performance appraisal scores of the employees. Each department manager
would submit a list of employees ranked by the average score of their last three appraisals.

If the employee had been with the company less than three years, if the score for two
employees was identical, or if there was some extraordinary circumstance, the manager
would note it and decide about where to rank the person. At some point, Deepak and the
Executive Committee would draw a line, and those below the line would be laid off.

As Deepak was reviewing the evaluations, he was puzzled to find three departments in
which the employee at the bottom of the list had "N/A" where the evaluation score should
have been written. When he asked the managers to explain, they told him these employees
had been with the company almost since the beginning. When performance appraisals had
been instituted six years earlier, the CEO agreed to the long-time employees' request that
they keep receiving informal evaluations "as they always had."

The managers told Deepak they'd questioned this decision, and the CEO had told them it
wasn't their problem.

When Deepak raised this issue with the CEO, he responded, "Oh, I know. I haven't really
evaluated them in a long time, but it's time for them to retire anyway. They just aren't
performing the way they used to. The company's been very good to them. We’ll offer them
a small compensation if required. The point is, they're making pretty good money, so cutting
them should let us lower the line a little and save jobs for some of the younger people--you
know, young kids with families just starting out. And don't worry about a lawsuit. No way
they'd do that."
"Do they or even YOU know, like you are absolutely sure, that they're not performing well?"
Deepak asked.

"I don't know," the CEO responded. "They should know. I mean, everybody else in the
company does when they are not performing well, so they can either pull up their socks or
look for other jobs."

"What does an employee do when he comes to know he is underperforming? Are they fired
right away?" Deepak asked.

"Oh God, No! We are not that mean!" the CEO responded. "They go into a PIP (Performance
Improvement Program) where they are trained on some specific skills and competencies; at
the same time their work is closely monitored for 6 months and post that, if there is still no
improvement, they are fired."

"Don’t you think if they are not performing, they should be trained on some skills like
everybody else? After all these people have seen the company grow and grown with it. They
have rich experience to offer. Don’t you think?" Deepak asked.

As they walked to the door, the CEO did not answer the question, instead, put his arm
around Deepak's shoulder (he had already decided not to answer this and chose Deepak to
do the thinking). "By the way," he said, "you should know that you've won over the
Executive Committee. They think you are a terrific fit with this company. I'm glad you talked
with me today about these three employees. You got it right: This is a company that cares
for its employees--as long as it can and as long as they're producing. Always has, always
will."

Deepak left the CEO's office with the vague feeling that he had some moral choices to
make.He might have an ethical dilemma.

What's the right thing to do?

If he disagrees with the CEO, how does he protect his own career and the interests of his
own family?

What do you think?

This approach focuses on safeguarding the fundamental principles of:

 integrity,
 objectivity,
 professional competence and due care,
 confidentiality, and
 professional behaviour
In order to do so, it is important to be alert to situations that may threaten these
fundamental principles. Identified threats need to be evaluated and managed, to ensure
that they are either eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level. Threats may arise as a
result of any of the following:

 self-interest: the threat that a financial or other interest will inappropriately

influence your judgement or behaviour
 self-review: the threat that you will not properly evaluate the results of a previous
judgement made or service performed by you (or someone else within your practice)
when forming a judgement as part of providing a current service
 advocacy: the threat that you will promote a position (usually your client’s) to the
point that your objectivity is compromised
 familiarity: the threat that, due to a long or close relationship with someone, you will
be too sympathetic to that person’s interests, or too accepting of their work
 intimidation: the threat that you will be deterred from acting objectively because of
actual or perceived pressures, including attempts to exercise undue influence over
you.

I hereby declare that the aforesaid work plan is well thought of and I shall adhere to it to the
best of my abilities. Any deviation in the same, however, shall be under the guidance and
supervision of my internship guide.

Submitted by: Internship Guide:

Arindam Mitra Aroop Chaudhury

24581 (75th batch, Delhi Chapter) GM, Channel Training -

SFL